d
putteth forth her leaves, ye know that summer is nigh." The botanists say,
"The leaf is an expansion of the bark of the stem." More accurately, the
bark is a contraction of the tissue of the leaf. For every leaf is born out
of the earth, and breathes out of the air; and there are many leaves that
have no stems, but only roots. It is 'the springing thing'; this thin film
of life; rising, with its _edge_ out of the ground--infinitely feeble,
infinitely fair. With Folium, in Latin, is rightly associated the word
Flos; for the flower is only a group of {42} singularly happy leaves. From
these two roots come foglio, feuille, feuillage, and fleur;--blume,
blossom, and bloom; our foliage, and the borrowed foil, and the connected
technical groups of words in architecture and the sciences.

4. This _thin_ film, I said. That is the essential character of a leaf; to
be thin,--widely spread out in proportion to its mass. It is the opening of
the substance of the earth to the air, which is the giver of life. The
Greeks called it, therefore, not only the born or blooming thing, but the
spread or expanded thing--"[Greek: petalon]." Pindar calls the beginnings
of quarrel, "petals of quarrel." Recollect, therefore, this form, Petalos;
and connect it with Petasos, the expanded cap of Mercury. For one great use
of both is to give shade. The root of all these words is said to be [GREEK:
PET] (Pet), which may easily be remembered in Greek, as it sometimes occurs
in no unpleasant sense in English.

5. But the word 'petalos' is connected in Greek with another word, meaning,
to fly,--so that you may think of a bird as spreading its petals to the
wind; and with another, signifying Fate in its pursuing flight, the
overtaking thing, or overflying Fate. Finally, there is another Greek word
meaning 'wide,' [Greek: platus] (platys); whence at last our 'plate'--a
thing made broad or extended--but especially made broad or 'flat' out of
the solid, as in a lump of clay extended on the wheel, or a lump of metal
extended by the hammer. So the first we call Platter; the second Plate,
when of the precious metals. Then putting _b_ for {43} _p_, and _d_ for
_t_, we get the blade of an oar, and blade of grass.

6. Now gather a branch of laurel, and look at it carefully. You may read
the history of the being of half the earth in one of those green oval
leaves--the things that the sun and the rivers have made out of dry ground.
Daphne--daughter of Enipeus, an